gender identity

National news: Startling new report shows more must be done for LGBT Youth

A report released recently by Human Rights Watch reveals that despite the “positive trends” for LGBTQ rights this past decade, there is still a great deal of work to be done to support and affirm LGBT young people in the US.

LGBTQ youth, according to the report, still “have disproportionately high rates of homelessness, physical and mental health concerns, and suicidality.” They can be put into “conversion therapy,” which is legal in all but five states, and in 2016, lawmakers in at least 18 states tried to pass legislation to keep transgender students from using the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity.

And the report found that, because of policy, the attitudes of students and teachers and the actions and inactions of school administrators — school is a dangerous and scary place for LGBTQ kids. According to Human Rights Watch, the problems that LGBTQ students face in public schools in the U.S. “undermine a number of fundamental human rights that the U.S. is obliged to uphold under international law,” rights that “all levels” of government have the responsibility to uphold.